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Satoru
Nakajima:
Japan's First
F1 Racing Driver
Nakajima's
F1 career lasted for five years until his retirement in 1991. He unfortunately
never made it to the winners' podium, though he did finish in
the top six 10 times. Subsequently he established Nakajima Racing
to bring up the next generation of drivers, and he is active as team
manager. |
In the 1960s the Japanese auto industry
achieved remarkable growth, and soon Japanese cars were making their
mark in the world of motor sports. But what the Japanese really wanted
to see was Japanese drivers sitting behind the wheels of the vehicles
on the Formula One circuit, the supreme arena of the racing world.
Eventually, in 1987, Satoru Nakajima became the first Japanese driver
to make full entry into this event, and his debut triggered an unprecedented
F1 boom in Japan.
Nakajima was born in 1953 to a farming family living on the outskirts
of Aichi’s Okazaki City. Unlike many other top racers, who have
been beneficiaries of special education from an early age, including
go-cart racing when they were quite young, he passed a very ordinary
childhood in a pleasant rural setting. When he was still in his early
teens, he practiced driving a car in his family’s garden with
his older brother as his instructor, always careful that his father
did not catch him. Such amusements, though, were nothing unusual for
a Japanese boy growing up in the 1960s. What distinguished him from
the thousands of other young boys in similar circumstances was the
extent of the thrill that he derived from driving. Controlling such
a big and powerful machine gave him far more pleasure than anything
else. “It was absolutely the best way to play,” he recalls.
Nakajima did not enter the world of serious motor racing until after
he finished high school and secured a driver’s license. But once
he got started, he quickly displayed an extraordinary talent. When
he made his debut in the Suzuka Circuit series at the age of 20, he
won the championship. Five years later, in 1978, he got his first
victory on the Japanese Formula Two circuit, the highest level of
motor racing in Japan. That is when he began to think seriously about
entering the Formula One competition.
It was no easy road. Starting in 1981, he won the Japanese F2 series
championship five times. Indeed, he was reckoned to be practically
without a rival at the top of Japan’s auto-racing world. But
even then no opportunity to race on F1 tracks came his way. When the
invitation to an F1 team finally arrived, he had reached 34. But if
you ask him if he was moved to the extreme on finally achieving his
goal, he just gives you his trademark smile and shakes his head. “It
was, of course, the greatest feeling,” he admits, “but I
didn’t feel nervous or pressured at all. This was simply a chance
to do the thing I like best: driving some of the world’s best
machines against the world’s best drivers on the world’s
top stage.”
Nakajima still lives today in the Okazaki family home where as a child
he would hop in a car for a spin when his father was not looking.
Within the thrill he then received we can no doubt find the spark
that gave Japan its first F1 driver. (Text by Takashi Sasaki; photos
by Tadashi Aizawa, courtesy of Nakajima Planning) |
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